A Russian who imported cannabis worth nearly €30,000 from Johannesburg has been jailed for five years at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.
Oleg Svetoslavski(25), of no fixed abode in Durban, South Africa, pleaded guilty to the unlawful possession of drugs with a market value in excess of euro12,700on February 9th, 2002.
Svetoslavski, originally from St Petersburg, produced his airline ticket and a British passport in the name of Robert Grimsby when asked for identification by Customs and Excise officials acting on foot of confidential information at DublinAirport.
Garda Ronan Biggins told Mr Dominic McGinn BL, prosecuting, that Customs and Excise officials stopped Svetoslavski just after he got off a flight from Johannesburg via Madrid.
He went to retrieve his bag from the carousel and was then taken to a search room where they located nine brown packages containing cannabis herb beneath a thin layer of clothes and a layer of foam.
Gda Biggins said Svetoslavski claimed the bag and its contents did not belong to him but had been given to him by a Nigerian in South Africa who offered him 8,000 rand to go to Europe. The drugs had a street value of euro29,300 euro.
Svetoslavski made a cautioned statement in which he said he had been living in Durban for a while after moving over from St Petersburg. He said he refused a first approach from a Nigerian who offered him 11,000 rand to go to Europe because he was working at the time and didn't need the money. A short time later he lost his job and found himself living on the beach in Durban, broke and very hungry.
He was then approached by a second Nigerian who offered him 8,000 rand for a similar trip. He decided to take it because it was the only way he could think of getting back to Europe. A week later he met a man in a hotel who gave him the bag and the phoney passport.
Judge Des Hogan said that Svetoslavski had pleaded guilty to a very serious offence, one which carried a possible minimum sentence of ten years.
"However, I have to have regard to the mitigating factors, such as his guilty plea, the cooperation he gave to gardaí, his health has the prospect of not being great in the future and the fact that he is a foreign national serving a prison sentence veryfar from home," he concluded.